Abandoned Ballparks: 1999-2014
Every time a team moves, a ballpark gets left behind. At the major league and affiliated minor league levels, that's happened on 90 occasions over the last 15 years. Those 90 ballparks are listed and their present status is detailed on the Abandoned Ballparks page, at which the most recent update noted the fire that turned Eugene's historic Civic Stadium into one of the 27 that are no longer standing. To find out what's happening with the 63 that still are, check out:Professional Ballparks Abandoned Since 1999

The 2015 Ballpark Count is 256
Two hundred fifty six. Spelled out, that's how many ballparks are collectively being used by teams in the various professional baseball leagues in 2015. The complete pro ballpark list lists the 256 in a state-by-state format, so you'll know where to find them in the 47 states that have at least one (plus in four Canadian provinces too). From Aberdeen (MD) to Zebulon (NC), all ballparks used by the major leagues, minor leagues and independent leagues are listed, along with their capacity and year of opening, on the only page on the Internet that you'll find all the current pro ballparks detailed.2015 Ballpark List

2015 Big League Ballpark Schedules
Knowing when the home team is at home is of paramount importance to anyone traveling to one of Major League Baseball's 30 ballparks, so creating calendar schedules for them that show the exact dates each team is playing at their homes in 2015 is certainly a useful aid to any on-the-road baseball fan and trip planner. That's what Baseball Pilgrimages has done, and you can see the team by team and ballpark by ballpark results on the Major League Baseball Home Schedules page, which also includes links to each team's and ballpark's monthly schedule.2015 Schedules by Ballpark

No-Hitters In Current MLB Parks Are Detailed
At baseball's highest level -- the major leagues -- the number of all-time no-hitters thrown (over the span of 139 years) now stands at 290. But just 85 of them have been thrown in one of Major League Baseball's 30 current ballparks. Those 30 ballparks have a collective 739 seasons of use, spanning from only three completed seasons at Miami's Marlins Park to the 103 recorded at Boston's Fenway Park, and 4 of them have never been the site of a no-hitter. Of the 26 ballparks that have, just five of them have hosted more than three no-hitters in their history. So despite an impressive amount of recent exceptions, as history proves there is no doubt that a no-hitter is not a common occurrence at today's ballparks.No-Hitters Thrown by Ballpark list

Over 76 Million Paid to Watch Major League Baseball in Person
Combining spring training and the regular season, MLB teams sold 76,851,982 tickets in 2014 to games played in their ballparks and regular spring training facilities, of which there are 24. Major League baseball was played in 31 ballparks during the regular season thanks to a two-game series that was played in Australia and the total number of officially counted game dates from the beginning of spring training on February 26 through the end of the regular season on September 28 was 2,848. You can see how many fans each team drew to their regular season and spring training ballpark at:Major League Attendance | Spring Training Attendance

Minor & Indy League Ballparks Draw 44,499,113 in 2014
Professional baseball below the major league level had another successful year, as nearly 44½ million tickets were sold by the 200 teams playing in the 19 minor and independent leagues that reported attendance in 2014. See how many each team drew to their ballpark in the league-by-league breakdowns at:Minor League Attendance | Independent League Attendance

Charlotte Surges to the Top Thanks to BB&T Ballpark
It was quite a year in Charlotte, where first-year BB&T Ballpark finished its inaugural baseball season by hosting the Triple-A National Championship Game on September 16. That came after the 10,200-capacity ballpark drew 687,715 fans to 71 Charlotte Knights games in 2014, a per game average of 9,686. Both totals were tops in minor league baseball and are vast increases over the Knights' attendance numbers in their previous ballpark, Knights Stadium, where the team last eclipsed 300,000 fans for a season in 2010.BB&T Ballpark Photo Gallery

Ballpark Briefs
This website has plenty to say about ballparks. But quotes about ballparks from others are in no short supply either, so we've started to compile them on the new “Ballpark Quotes” page... Being a baseball fan turned Eric Kabakoff into a first-time author. The title of his new book, Rally Caps, Rain Delays and Racing Sausages: A Baseball Fan’s Quest to See the Game from a Seat in Every Ballpark, sums up its content. The book was published in October and Baseball Pilgrimages has posted an excerpt from it... In addition to his book excerpt, Eric Kabakoff has joined Todd Gimbi as the most recent well-traveled ballpark aficionados to submit a list of their Top 5 Major League Ballparks... Hitting for the cycle is something that doesn't happen often -- it's essentially the hitter's equivalent of a pitcher throwing a no-hitter -- and our newest ballpark research feature is dedicated to chronicling the 92 cycles that have been hit in MLB's current 30 ballparks. In all, 307 cycles have been hit in 70 past and 22 present major league ballparks.

Bob Feller Museum in Iowa Recalls His Path to Greatness
Bob Feller died last year but his legacy lives on in his hometown of Van Meter, IA, where his namesake museum opened in 1995. The Bob Feller Museum is the place to go to see the cancelled check of $1 that he got in 1935 as a signing bonus and plenty of other memorabilia and memories from Feller's career, which made him a first ballot Hall of Famer in 1962, and his life, in which he earned eight World War II Battle Stars. Cooperstown-esque in its thorough tale of farm boy done good, the museum's location in a small Iowa farm town gives it a pastoral setting that makes a visit all the more pleasant.Read the article

Ballpark Museum Opens in Denver
At long last, someone had the good sense to open a museum dedicated to ballparks. That someone is Bruce "B" Hellerstein, hence the name B’s Ballpark Museum. Although the collection of ballpark artifacts had a home since 1999, they were literally in a home - Bruce's. In the summer of 2010, he moved the collection from his basement to near Denver's ballpark, and now the nation's first permanent location for a museum dedicated to ballparks is across the street from Coors Field.Read the article

Rickwood Field Celebrates 100th Birthday
A hundred years is a long time for any building to stand. For a ballpark, such a milestone was unprecedented until August 18, 2010 when Birmingham's Rickwood Field became the first still used pro park to reach the triple digit threshold. The occasion was marked by a "Centennial Open House" celebration, during which those in attendance reminisced about America's oldest ballpark. Their stories from the stands and behind the scenes paint a vivid picture of a colorful place that has few equals when it comes to manufacturing memories.Read the article

Talkin' Ballparks With Toledo Mud Hens GM Joe Napoli
Toledo's Fifth Third Field is one of the best minor league stadiums in which I've witnessed a game. Home to the world famous Mud Hens, the ballpark opened in 2002. The team's current general manager, Joe Napoli, had been on the job well before then and recently took some time to answer a dozen questions about how Fifth Third Field came to be and what makes it so remarkable in the second installment of our Talkin' Ballparks interview series.Read the interview

Places to Go, Things to See, All in the Name of Baseball History
Historic markers, memorials, museums and other sites across the country tout baseball's illustrious history in the places where that history was made. These attractions are worthy of a pilgrimage in their own right, so Baseball Pilgrimages has begun to chronicle some of the places to go and things to see for those who love baseball history. To kick off the series, we made a visit to parking lot B at U.S. Cellular Field, where a Comiskey Park Tribute outlines the area that was home to White Sox baseball for 80 years.

10 Great Places For A Baseball Pilgrimage
The fine folks at USA Today asked for and we gave them 10 great minor league destinations for travelers who enjoy baseball, a list that was published in the "10 Great Places" portion of their travel section that appears each Friday. From Buffalo to Sacramento and the eight points in between, we explain in a follow up to the printed piece that ran on April 2nd why each ballpark and city chosen is a great place for a baseball pilgrimage in much more detail than space in the newspaper would allow for.Read the story at Baseball PilgrimagesRead the article at USA Today

Baseball Pilgrimages on Facebook
Since June of 2009 we've been on Facebook, posting photo galleries of ballparks, write-ups of baseball road trips and recaps of news about where the national pastime is played on the Baseball Pilgrimages page, which cleared 10,000 fans/likes in December of 2012. Join what has become a respective number of masses by following along at Facebook. If you love ballparks, you won't be disappointed in the page.

Featured Articles

Fluor Field in Greenville - July 20, 2013My second son, at age almost 21 months, saw his first baseball game in a South Atlantic League ballpark in South Carolina in the summer of 2013. Greenville's Fluor Field, a prime example of the modern and family-friendly ballpark, was the location in which Walker mostly roamed while the Lexington Legends beat the Greenville Drive. My toddler's first time seeing America's pastime in person is recounted, with a tip of the cap given to the splendid 'lil ballpark that is responsible for baseball's success in the Palmetto State city that's best known as the hometown of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.Read the full article

Drillers Stadium Loses the Drillers
The cliché is true. If you build it, they will come. It being a ballpark and they being a baseball team. Of course, "they" have to leave somewhere to arrive and when that happens a current ballpark becomes a former one. That happened quite a bit in the decade that is just about to end; 63 times in fact. That's counting major and affiliated minor league teams, one of which is the Tulsa Drillers, who left their self-titled stadium in the county fairgrounds for new corporate sponsored downtown digs.Read the full articleAbandoned ballparks list

McCormick Field in Asheville - July 5, 2009My 8-month old son saw his first baseball game on the evening of July 5th. The venue was an old one: Asheville's McCormick Field, established in 1924. Zachary, at 244 days, enjoyed the Tourists' 7-6 victory over the visiting Charleston RiverDogs primarily from the comforts of his mother's lap in a bleacher seat behind the home team dugout, where our rookie in life enjoyed the old ball game on a night in which rain drizzled intermittently during his inaugural immersion in America’s national pastime.Read the full article

What You Need to Know to Become A Ballpark Tourist
There are 30 major league ballparks and all but two of them offer tours guided by team employees. A ballpark tour takes fans from the dugout to the press box and many points in between. Besides exposing fans to places normally off-limits, a tour enlightens those in attendance about public areas usually overlooked and facts previously unknown. Whether or not catching the home team at home is possible, a tour of their ballpark is a fulfilling opportunity that all baseball fans are sure to enjoy and is a memorable experience provided by all teams except the Marlins and Mets.Read the full article

Baseball's Ultimate Throwback Game - Birmingham, AL
It's one thing to "turn back the clock" and wear retro uniforms, quite another to play in a throwback ballpark. But every year that's what the Birmingham Barons do, much to the delight of ballpark fans everywhere. Rickwood Field, built in 1910, is an ageless wonder, a baseball playground of generations past. Lovingly restored, it is the oldest ballpark in the nation to host professional baseball thanks to the annual Southern League game that's played there. That game is known as the Rickwood Classic.Read the full articleSee the photo gallery

Estadio Calimax - Tijuana, Mexico
Ever wonder what it's like to watch America's pastime somewhere where the English language is scarce? In the Mexican League, the game on the field looks familiar but the experience in the stands is anything but normal. Girls dressed like strippers on top of the dugout, a mascot on the field during the game, and lots of music are just a few things that will detract your attention from players you've never heard of. But it all adds up to a very lively, and intoxicating, atmosphere.Read the full article

Catch It If You CanThe average life of a Major League baseball is only six pitches, but the likelihood of catching a foul ball is very remote due to the size of the ballpark and competition from thousands of fans. For most fans, batting practice is the only chance to get a ball as players successfully swing for the fences in front of small gatherings. With balls landing in relatively empty seats the likelihood of catching – or at least retrieving – one would seem simple. At least that's what I thought while trying to snag a souvenir during BP in Houston.Read the full article

CONSOL Energy Park in Washington, PA - August 22, 2009We didn't have a professional baseball team when I grew up in Washington, PA in the 1980s. That all changed when the since renamed Falconi Field opened in 2002 and the Washington Wild Things were born. Well after my former hometown joined the rarefied ranks of cities with pro ball I finally got to experience the thrill of seeing a game there.Read the full article

Welcome to BaseballPilgrimages.com
On March 16, 2001, after saving up enough vacation time to take two weeks off, I arrived in Melbourne, Florida for Spring Training. Coinciding with my arrival was an unexpected phone call, informing me that I had been laid off, another casualty of the dot-com bust. And so the journey began when my personal misfortune afforded me the time to do what I had always wished: travel the country. Add to that my passion for baseball, and most of my trips have included numerous baseball pilgrimages, hence the name of the site. And when my original car died on the way to Vero Beach for a game on my Spring Training journey of 2002, I bought a new one and embarked on a cross-country trip to California.

What started out as just a trip to Spring Training has morphed into visiting ballparks at all levels, from the lowest levels of the bush leagues to the legendary ballyards in the big leagues. Although I'd been to a number of ballparks prior to the 2001 season, I decided to use that year as my starting point. Through nine seasons, I’ve seen 254 games in 100 ballparks and traveled thousands of miles across our great country in pursuit of the national pastime. I've been to places I'd never thought I'd go, or probably would not have considered....all because of a baseball game.

A tour of ballparks is a great way to see America, as professional baseball is dotted across its landscape. This site is dedicated to all of those who have taken the journey, or wish to.